


i wish i may, i wish i might

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Gen, M/M, Stargazing, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 03:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16421129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: Ren once wished on a shooting star that he and Kai would become the best of friends. Kai's only wish was that they could both come to understand one another.





	i wish i may, i wish i might

The night sky was perfect for stargazing; clear, with a new moon and a mandatory citywide light ban just for the occasion. Such conditions were rare, and Kai managed to talk his relatives into letting him "stay the night at Ren's," though he had no intention of going there; he met up with Ren at the local park, where they sat on swings and stared up at the sky. Ren's father, to keep the good fortune coming, was out of the country on a business trip for the week, and Ren couldn't be in better spirits.

"Look, Kai! I saw one!"

Ren pointed at the sky, waggling his finger in a vaguely northeastern direction. Kai tried to follow his view, but saw nothing until a tiny flash caught his attention.

"Oh," he said, trying bravely to feign only mild interest in what Japanese astronomers were calling a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower. "I saw one, too."

"Isn't it amazing!" Ren pumped his legs until he was swinging high enough to give Kai anxiety. "The way the stars just zoooooom, just like that!"

It took Kai about ten seconds to process this statement, another ten to parse whether Ren was just being Ren or if he was being serious, and another ten to think up a suitable response, with the end result being that half a minute had passed without Ren saying or indicating anything else about how he might have been kidding when he called shooting stars _actual stars_.

"Ren," he said warily, legs dangling from the swing as Ren kept swinging so high Kai was afraid he was about to flip the swing around the bar and break his neck, "you do realize that... those aren't... actually stars... right?"

Ren only laughed, which left Kai with no answers to his very important question.

Eventually, Ren grew bored with the swing and flew off, landing with no grace whatsoever and falling flat on his rear, but instead of sulking about it he just laughed again and fell on his back. There, lying in the middle of the dark, empty playground on the spongy tar surface with his arms out wide, he turned his gaze back to the night sky.

"Look, Kai," he said again, pointing, "there are so many of them!"

Kai slid from his swing and joined Ren on the ground. Even with the moon's absence, the abundance of stars lit up the sky like billions of tiny match heads, all in different colors and sizes of yellows and reds and blues; binding them together were the wispy white tendrils of the galaxy.

"When you see a shooting star, you should make a wish."

It was to be expected, that Ren would believe in that kind of childish superstition. Kai simply hummed _mm_ in response and kept staring at the stars.

He was starting to doze off when a pair of hands grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him back to full consciousness.

"Wh-what the-- Ren, knock it off!"

"Kai!" Ren whined. "You're not making wishes!"

"I'm not making wishes on space rocks!"

"Why are you so mean!"

"Why are _you_ so annoying?"

Ren kept whining and prodding him so eventually Kai huffed and squeezed his eyes shut for a second, pretending to think. When he opened them again, Ren was inches away from him, staring eagerly at his face.

"Well? What'd you wish for?"

Kai scowled. "If I told you, it wouldn't come true."

"Yeah it will!"

"Nuh-uh!"

Ren _humph_ ed and crossed his arms. "Well _I_ wished that we could become even better friends, the best of friends."

Something about the earnestness of this simple wish, something that Kai and Ren both knew wasn't a wish that could just _happen,_ but that it required the work of both parties, eased Kai's irritation.

Childhood friendships weren't absolute. People drifted, people changed. In five years, Kai would be a completely different person. So would Ren. They would make new friends, maybe, and they would have new goals for the future.

Kai had never seriously considered the future. He spent so much of his life trying to get through the present, and recently the past, trying to understand what had happened to him and why; simply getting through the day was enough of a challenge for him. And his relationship with Ren was _weird,_ sometimes; Ren was hard to read, impulsive and childish, yet earnest and determined. Kai was focused and methodical, yet shy and aloof.

That two complete opposites could become friends was a miracle in itself.

"A rock in the sky isn't going to make us better friends, Ren."

Ren leaned into him playfully, almost knocking Kai over. "You're right, you could start by getting that rock out of your--"

The night went on. The meteors streaking across the sky became more infrequent. As Ren fell asleep on Kai's arm, Kai spotted one last flash of light. He looked over at Ren, who was now drooling on Kai.

_I wish..._

It was stupid, to be pinning his hopes for someone to love him on a rock in the sky.

_I wish we could come to understand each other._

* * *

 

The roof of the Foo Fighter headquarters, the tallest building for several blocks, was windy; Ren dragged Kai up to watch the projected meteor shower. It was the second clearest night for the event in nearly a hundred years; with a crescent moon and some cloud cover, it wasn't as good as it had been six years ago. But Ren was feeling nostalgic lately, and Kai was visiting from France for the first time in over a year, so Ren roped him into staying at Foo Fighter instead of paying for a hotel.

The lights in the city were still on, unlike that night so many years ago. The stars weren't as bright, the Milky Way barely noticeable. But the tiny streaks of light were visible enough that Ren rediscovered his fourteen year old self and started pointing at all of them, all while hanging on Kai's arm.

Once again, Ren made the comment about the stars zipping along in the sky, and Kai was still not sure if Ren was yanking his chain or being dead serious.

"Aichi would have a stroke if he heard you saying that shooting stars were actually stars, Ren."

Ren's eyes lit up. "Aichi-kun! Of course!" He fumbled in the pocket of his jacket for his phone. "I bet he's enjoying this."

Kai reached his arm around Ren's shoulders and plucked the phone from Ren's hand. "It's nine in the morning in America, Ren."

"Oh yeah..." Ren put a finger to his lips and frowned at the sky. "I forgot."

"He's got your number blocked, anyway," Kai went on, sticking Ren's phone in his own pocket. "Said he can't go on with you calling him about what setting to use on the washing machine at three in the morning all the time."

"Kaaaai," Ren whined, pouting. "Aichi-kun wouldn't do that to me, stop being mean."

"Stop whining, you're an adult."

"Hmph." Ren turned his nose up, away from Kai. "You're boring, Kai. No Fun Kai."

Kai resisted the urge to roll his eyes with difficulty.

Ren continued to chant _No Fun Kai_ to himself with various inflections and at different volumes before turning back to Kai, who was lying on the rooftop with his eyes closed.

"Fight me, Kai."

Kai opened one eye. "Right here?"

Ren grinned, showing off what looked like all of his teeth at once. "Scared?"

"Of you?" Kai snorted and sat up. "It's too windy up here to fight, the cards will get--"

"No Fun Kai, No Fun Kai--"

"Fine! God, if it makes you stop doing that, fine!"

Ren clapped his hands together and beamed. "Yay! It's been a long time, Kai."

Kai dug around in his pocket for his deck box and sat across from Ren. "I've gotten even better, Ren."

"I would hope so." Ren pulled out his starting Vanguard and started shuffling his deck. Kai mirrored him. "It wouldn't do for the perfect cardfighter to stagnate, now would it?"

"Oh? Are you admitting that I'm better than you?"

Ren simply giggled.

They cut each other's decks, handed them back, and stood their Vanguards.

It was a friendly match, without anything at stake, yet they fought with the same intensity they always had; exchanging blows one after another, guard, trigger, draw, heal, counterblast, soulblast, soulcharge, call, retire. Even in the Europe League, Kai rarely faced an opponent who fought with such passion for their units, someone who loved the game as much as Kai did.

"As expected, Kai." Ren placed a guard, holding Kai to one damage. "You play that Narukami just as well as Kagero."

"I thought I would mix things up a little with you. You know most of my Kagero strategies by now."

"Mm, indeed." Ren stood his units and drew, pressing his hand over the cards on the ground as a gust of wind passed by. "This really takes me back."

Kai thought about when he had last used Narukami in any competitive setting. "To Asia Circuit?"

"No." Ren smiled, but it wasn't malicious or foreboding; it was contemplative. Content. "Not the deck, Kai. Us."

These words took Kai aback, so much that he almost forgot to include the boost to Ren's Vanguard when throwing out guards. "What do you mean by that?"

Ren looked up at the sky and smiled. "Remember that last meteor shower? When I told you to make a wish and you told me--"

"I wasn't wishing on space rocks."

"Yeah." Ren giggled. "But my wish was that we could become the best of friends."

That, as it turned out, had proven to be impossible. Ren and Kai were too different; they had different goals, different fighting styles, different needs. Psyqualia had torn them apart, and even now that Ren had quelled that malicious, power-thirsty part of himself, the damage done had been too severe. They were rivals, and now friends again, but...

"We lost that chance," Kai said quietly.

"We did, didn't we?" Ren smiled at the sky. "But it's nice to remember, isn't it?"

They played through a few more rounds before Kai could work himself up to say it.

"I had a wish."

Ren looked up.

Kai stared at the cards in his hand. He couldn't back out of this now; he'd initiated it and now he had to see it through. Ren wouldn't let it go, and neither would he. "You wished for us to be best friends, but I... I thought that was a lofty dream. Neither of us... is really suited for that."

For a miracle, Ren remained silent and contemplative.

"But I thought, maybe, there was a level in our relationship that we could reach. I thought, even if we don't become the best of friends, even if we change too much..."

The image of Ren, curled up and drooling on Kai's shoulder as they laid under the stars on that playground, flashed in Kai's mind.

"At least... even if something happened to us, at least I could wish for us to come to understand each other."

A powerful wind gust barreled over the roof at that moment, and both Kai and Ren were forced to abandon their fight to keep their cards from blowing off the building. But Ren didn't appear displeased, and neither was Kai. He was relieved, in many ways, to release the burden of his greatest wish for his friendship with Ren, even to acknowledge that he wanted to salvage the relationship that had nearly ended years ago. What Ren chose to do now was up to him.

Ren took Kai by the arm and pulled him onto his back, so they could look up at the last vestiges of the meteor shower. He didn't let go, even when he curled close and rested his head on Kai's shoulder, the wind blowing Ren's hair into Kai's face.

"I think that's a worthy wish," he whispered.

Together, in the blustery wind on the rooftop under the stars, Kai and Ren fell into a comfortable silence, their old wish newly realized.

**Author's Note:**

> this is for a friend who has been feeling very down lately. I know I can't do much about their situation but I hope at least some sweet kairen can cheer them up even a little. <3


End file.
